It’s a big bad world out there, and we’re pretty sure it’s not going to change any time soon. We’re talking specifically about malware, drive-by exploits and the like, because these attacks seem to be on the rise, and it’s kind of disconcerting.

Good then to see some tools start to appear, especially ones which are geared to the kind of exploits that your typical anti-virus won’t catch. We’re looking at you zero day exploits! The new Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit comes from a pretty good stable, the company started out supplying anti-rootkit advice and tools, and has gone from strength to strength.

The free software is in beta at the moment, so expect a few glitches, but it’s designed to protect not just all the main browsers, but also key vulnerable software applications such as MS Office and Adobe Acrobat etc. We’re not given any details of how it performs its magic, but it apparently just sits there in the background monitoring your system to make sure things stay nice and friendly while you surf and work.

It’s hard to test this kind of stuff, but the company helpfully gives a couple of demo files to use here, which demonstrate the program in action. Very reassuring (assuming they’re not just rigged to trigger an alert box). Definitely worth adding to the toolbox we think.